Some Things Take Longer Than You'd Think

Ten years ago, after I finished my solo canoe, BJ asked for a craft cabinet, providing very minimal specs. I built the base, and essentially all the parts for the hutch top, but for a number of reasons set the project aside.

For years, the two doors were stored in a closet and all the other parts were stacked in the garage. I finally decided it was time to get the stuff out of the garage, either as a piece of functional furniture or as firewood.

When I dug the pieces out, I remembered why I'd quit on the project before. Both of the side panels, built from 'stable' plywood edged with solid wood, had immediately bowed. Storage hadn't made them straighter. I ended up buying some solid alder, gluing up panels, and making new side panels from solid wood.

I kicked her car out of the garage so that I had enough room to work, apparently a small price to pay.

Many of the pieces had been sanded and varnished before I shelved the project years ago, so this time, once I had the new side panels built, things moved fairly quickly.

I'm not happy with the scale of the top - it's too tall in my mind,

but it leaves room for the largest folding table possible.

One can never have too much table or too much storage space when you're crafting. One more thing off the list and a bit more space in the garage.

A Dark & Stormy Morning

My new Fitbit has been nagging at me, insisting I get more active, so I headed out for some geocaching which helped for a day. That evening, several new caches published, all nicely lined up along a trail in the foothills. Now I had a plan to keep the nag happy for another day. The sun was supposed to be making its appearance, but clouds were trumping it. Hardly enough color to bother with pictures.

This was a section of trail I'd never used before. Most of it was very good except for a couple short stretches. The nag said there were 26 floors involved, but I didn't sense that much elevation change.

The pokey stuff was out in force, but I managed to avoid all of it.

The clouds were doing their best to keep the sun from showing its face, but in exchange, the cool breeze was using the clouds to paint the sky with interesting patterns.

Finally, over two hours after I started, the sun peeked out from behind the clouds, warming my back as I approached the end of my hike.

First to find on five caches, a delightful walk on an interesting trail, and a nag that's happy for another day. The best part is that I can now blame the nag for my geocaching.

Thankful

It's that time of year when the sweet oranges ripen. We shared our first one of the season today!

Yesterday, I was out doing some cache maintenance on a very grey morning when I got a phone call from our son saying they'd had a large earthquake but all were OK.

We've all seen photos of some of the major road damage and we're hearing about bridge damage as well. Some folks have suffered significant structural damage to their homes,

while it looks like the only structural issue at our Alaska contingent's place was some shelves in the closet.

We're thankful!

Please pray for all the folks who are significantly impacted and all the work that will be required to return their life to normal.